How to Open a US AdSense Account?

This is a question that has the world's easiest answer. You DON'T (ie: CANNOT) open an Adsense account in the United States unless you LIVE in the United States.

Giving information in your AdSense application that IS NOT TRUE is considered fraud. Fraud can get you into more problems than you ever wanted to face. Tax problems, government problems ... even legal problems. US tax regulations are fairly complex, which means the chances of a non-US individual actually understanding them, or understanding the ramifications of lying on an application are fairly small.

When you sign up for Adsense, you must provide true and correct information, and by submitting the application and accepting the terms of use, you are certifying the information you provided is true. If you give a false name (ie: someone else's name), or a false address you are now committing fraud. So right away, from the moment you sign up and agree to the terms, you are setting yourself up for legal sanction.

US Terms of Service for Adsense

12. Representations; Warranties; Disclaimers

You represent and warrant that (i) you have full power and authority to enter into the Agreement; (ii) you are the owner of, or are legally authorized to act on behalf of the owner of, each Property; (iii) you are the technical and editorial decision maker in relation to each Property on which the Services are implemented and that you have control over the way in which the Services are implemented on each Property; (iv) Google has never previously terminated or otherwise disabled an AdSense account created by you due to your breach of the Agreement or due to invalid activity; (v) entering into or performing under the Agreement will not violate any agreement you have with a third party or any third-party rights; and (vi) all of the information provided by you to Google is correct and current.

I fail to see how providing a fake US address to Adsense is "correct". Obviously, it isn't.

What makes this the most ridiculous is that by providing a wrong address or wrong country when signing up, you're pretty much ensuring you will not be able to collect your earnings from Adsense. Oh ... I guess you didn't know that, right?

Regardless of what other blogs will tell you about getting a US account when you don't live there, the problem you'd face in certifying your tax information will prevent you from being able to receive earnings. When you have a US address in your AdSense account, you have US activity (or a US presence), and that means you cannot claim that you have no US activities. Unless you have a tax exemption from the government, you can't claim an exemption from filing the tax either. You have to provide your SSN in the tax submission, and if you don't live in the US, you don't have one. If you get a TIN (tax ID number) from the US, you end up having to file income taxes in the US.

Are you getting it yet? You can't do this without getting into trouble.

US tax laws are designed to prevent this sort of activity - receiving earnings using fake information. This would pretty much ensure that you wind up being investigated for money laundering by trying to trick the government (which is what you're doing by signing up with a US address if you don't live in the US or don't own a business* or property in the US).

*note that some businesses owned by non-US citizens that actually have a US presence/location can use a US address provided they qualify under the tax laws for business in the US. 

So people ... have fun with that. Because you are seriously messing with your future by trying to get around the country rules for Adsense.

Apart from that, if your AdSense account has a US address, then you need to have your payments deposited to a bank account physically located in the US, so I guess you'll be getting on a plane, flying to the US and trying to talk some bank into opening a bank account for you, even though you don't live in the US.

The only payment method available in an account with a US address is EFT (no more cheque payments, and no Western Union). When using EFT, the bank account must have your name on it (ie: the name of the payee in the AdSense account, which you cannot change to that of another person), and it must be located at a bank in the US (Adsense Payment Methods).  Trying to use a bank with someone else's name will not work (most US banks would reject the deposit if the names don't match, and 99% of the time, you will not be able to change the country in your Adsense account after approval), nor will a bank outside of the US work:

Why did my test deposit fail?

There are a number of reasons why your test deposit might fail. We have provided a detailed list below.

• Incorrect bank account number or bank codes (the required information will vary by country)
• Bank account is closed
• Bank is not located in the same country entered in your AdSense account
• Bank account is not in the local currency of the country entered in your AdSense account
• Bank account is not set up to receive incoming ACH/EFT
• Your bank code changed as the result of a recent bank merger

Nearly all the major banks require you live in the US or at least have an actual physical address in the US (property you own), and photo-ID and documents to prove that before they'll open a bank account for you.  (Note that depending on where you live, virtual bank accounts cannot be used for collecting earnings. In some cases Adsense requires that you have a physical brick and mortar bank account - that means a real bank, not a virtual one.)

We tried to set up one ourselves (a real bank account at a US bank) - not for Adsense, I get paid just fine to my Canadian bank account, but because we holiday in the US nearly every year and figured it would be easier to have money in a US bank so we could access it while on holidays. Because we didn't live there and didn't have property there, no bank would open one for us. Nice huh?

So in the end, the simplest answer to the question "how can I open a US Adsense account" is "move to the US", because giving false information can get you in big trouble.

As a friend once said to me ... "lying to the government is bad juju". And lying to Adsense can be just as bad.

posted by J. Gracey Stinson

Ad Blockers: Let's Talk!

There are many different adblockers available in the market for a variety of different browsers. But the one most people seem to complain about, is one that seems to be the most well-known. Adblock Plus is a much-used adblocker. Publishers hate it (well, some do - I do not) because so many people use it. According to ABP, 75% of their users don't mind some types of ads, while 25% of their users want to just block everything. Keep in mind that for those users who just want to block every type of ad and refuse to see any advertising at all, nothing you do will make them change their mind.

But AdBlock Plus isn't the villain here. At least, I don't see it that way. In some cases, the problem is the publisher themselves. They have too many ads on a page from too many different ad providers. Or, the ads they use are intrusive, cutting into a person's ability to read content without being interrupted by advertising. Intrusive and annoying ads will create a poor user experience, and may actually lose you visitors, especially if you are begging them to turn it off.

AdBlock Plus has a feature called "Acceptable Ads", and the criteria for acceptable ads isn't hard to understand, even for users who are less web-savvy. You can turn on, or turn off the Acceptable Ads feature. Some will just leave it off and see no ads, either because they just simply hate ads period, or because they aren't sure how to use it, or how to change it.

Is it any wonder people use adblockers when
faced with this sort of assault?

If you go to ABP's website, you can see the criteria for acceptable ads. The first thing to note there is the ad placement. Have a look at what isn't acceptable ... see that red block in the middle of all the text? If you've got ad placements like that on your site, you don't fit the acceptable ads criteria.

And note that ABP has the same criteria as Adsense does for being able to tell the difference between ads, and content. Ads should clearly be different than the content so visitors aren't fooled into thinking the ad is content. There are other criteria on ABPs acceptable ads list, such as the size of ads used, on what type of pages ads should be displayed, the colours and styles of ads allowed for acceptability. If your site qualifies, you can apply at ABP's site to be added to the acceptable ads list.

I'm guessing a bunch of you will go running off to the site to apply, without meeting the qualifications for inclusion on the list so, prepare to be disappointed.

It's interesting to note that ABP also uses the requirement of having lots of content on a page. If there is no primary content, or not enough primary content, you shouldn't have ads on the page.

They also have a list of ads that aren't considered as acceptable and don't qualify for the "Acceptable Ads" listing in ABP. Such things as ads that refresh when the page isn't refreshed (so, ads that rotate would be included in that), animated ads, ads with auto play sound or video ads, expanding ads, oversized ads, interstitial ads, overlay ads, pop ups and popunders, and rich media ads. That's a long list of "no-no's", so if you use these types of ads on your site, you are more likely to find adblocking users aren't seeing them at all.

The problem here is that advertising providers (including AdSense) produce these types of ads. In some cases, publishers have the option of not using some of those ad types on their sites. But the ad providers really are the ones who need to adjust the types of ads they serve if they don't want people blocking their ads. With their efforts to entice visitors to have some interest in the advertising, they've stepped over the bounds of what many people consider acceptable.

Publishers need to take note as well, because with too many ads and too many things moving on your site, people will simply block everything, they won't just pick and choose which ads to block.

Even if your site makes it onto the AcceptableAds list, you may still have lots of adblocking visitors. Part of that is because visitors may not understand how adblockers can be customized to their own needs, so instead of notices begging people to turn off their adblockers, try educating them instead. Explain the ease of making the adblocker work to block overloaded sites, or intrusive ads, or specific ad urls and how they whitelist sites they trust.

With so many publishers complaining about adblockers, everyone is looking for a solution. The solution isn't to badger visitors because no matter how great your content is, similar content can be found on dozens of other sites. Sites that are ad-free, or that don't care if people use adblockers. By using the wrong solution, you could be driving your would-be visitors onto another site that doesn't hassle them about their adblocker.

Of course, in the end the decision is yours to make but if you aren't going to be part of solution, there's no point in complaining about the problem. Complainers don't help fix things. Bold turn-off notices don't help. More ads doesn't help. I'm no expert, and like many others, I don't really know how to fix it.

What I do know is how not to annoy my visitors even further.

posted by J. Gracey Stinson

How Would You Change AdSense?

Here's a question for all of you - or any of you - that have had frustrations with Adsense. Sometimes things don't work as intended, do they? This can be particularly true of companies that use automation for much of their processes. I'm sure at some point in their AdSense career every publisher has probably said something like "If I ran Adsense, I'd __________!". So, let's fill in the blank.

What would you do if you ran the AdSense Program; what would you change, fix, or drop? How would you make those changes work? After all, it's easy to say "this should be better", but it's not always easy to come up with a viable way to make those changes work.

Here's my lists:

Publisher Pluses

1. Good publishers would be rewarded. Maybe with quarterly bonuses, or a premium-style ad format. By good publisher, I don't mean "high earning publishers". I mean publishers whose sites contain no violations, who practice good ad placements, who don't promote their sites using non-approved methods, etc. etc.

2. Payment thresholds would be lowered a little (maybe $75) and the process for validating a publisher's address would be changed to uploaded documents when crossing the threshold, instead of waiting for a PIN by regular mail. Since very few countries have check payments any longer, verifying a person's country address by documents makes more sense, and creates less waiting time, meaning publishers may be able to collect their first earnings a little quicker.

(a) country changes could be requested through the account, rather than publishers having to close their current accounts, however, in order for a country change to be approved, publishers would have to provide (i) documentation for the address they signed up with and (ii) documentation for their new address. They'd have to prove they lived at the first country address, as well as that they've moved to a new country.

3. Publishers would not even have the ability to change a spelling error in the payee name, however, they could submit a request to Adsense to correct it. Name changes would not be allowed except in the cases of marriage (normally a woman who changes her name when she marries, but in some cultures, that could be the man who changes their name); death of a spouse, where the surviving spouse becomes the account owner if the spouse is the heir; the transfer of an account from a parent to a child who has reached 18 and qualifies for their own account (in which case, the parent's name would be removed from AdSense so the parent could qualify for their own separate account in the future).

4. Business accounts (for actual, real already existing businesses) would have a separate platform for ads and would not use AdSense. Businesses must provide proof (by documentation) that they exist and can support themselves without the "BusinessAd" platform. Nobody would be creating a business name just to get Adsense ads. The business would need to be a viable business on it's own before they qualify.

5. Publishers would have varying levels of support from email to phone, based on their years with AdSense and their site's quality ratings (oh yes, publishers sites would have quality ratings), and not be based on how much they earn. This of course would mean slower response times, but since I'd envision a lot less publishers, and even less of them who would require support, it would probably work.

AdSense Pluses

1. I'd drop the YouTube program (sorry tubers) and start up a new format for YT.

Publishers would be invited based on specific videos, not entire channels. If one or two videos on a channel are selected, that's all that would be monetized. Not the channel, just the videos. Videos would be selected for monetizing after a human review for quality, length, language (ie: no "f" words), content compliance, and copyright. That would make it a lot slower, but end up with less problematic videos, and with videos long enough to actually be monetized. It's pointless monetizing 7 or 10 second videos.

2. I'd enforce the age requirement. If you aren't 18, you can't "use" Adsense, not even with a parent's Adsense account (sorry young'uns). Why? Because a lot of the youngsters we see using AdSense simply don't understand the rules and guidelines and don't bother to follow any of them.  Some sign up using a parent's (or other older relative) name without the knowledge or approval of an adult. This is not only wrong, it's bad.

A minor who is 13 or older could use a parent's account under certain circumstances. That would involve a direct telephone interview with the parent and a staff member, with confirming information that the parent will be monitoring their child's site/channel for community behaviour, and for contents. (yeah, that's tuff ... not many kids would want their parents seeing some of what they do). A parent would be required to review each video or blog post before it's published. Basically, this would mean the adult then becomes responsible for everything done by the minor. I wonder how many parents would agree to this?

To be fair, we've seen some very mature youngsters who do everything right, but they seem to be the exception, rather than the rule.

(What's also true, however, is that many adults appear to be even more immature than some of the younger folks.)

3. I'd set the bar higher for quality and content. So high, some of my own sites might not even qualify to show ads. Every application would be reviewed manually, once it passed the initial crawler review. Doing that manually would slow things down tremendously, though. Publishers would wait months for a site review. But manual review should guarantee that only those with the highest quality content that is all original, and actually useful, would make it into Adsense (that is, if I've trained my staff right). AdSense is (er, would be) for content "creators", not for content copiers, aggregators, or those who make websites for the sole purpose of making money from ads. And sites would need to be at least a year old, with a minimum of 100 visitors per day. No "viral" sites with sensational headlines that don't match the contents properly would be allowed into AdSense if it were up to me. They're mostly nonsense, and mostly copied. That would be one category of site that simply wouldn't make it under me.

(a) Every approved publisher would not simply be able to use their ads wherever they like. They'd be required to submit each new website for human review and approval before they can place ads on them.

(b) All accounts would be monitored monthly. Each site would be re-reviewed quarterly. If sites fail the quarterly review, ads would be removed from the site.

4. News sites of any kind would not be monetized (sorry newsmongers), BUT, I would set up an entirely different form of Google advertising for news sites (maybe something like "NewsAds). Haven't quite figured the details on that, but moving news sites to a platform that is separate from AdSense would make sense for AdSense Publishers, and for the news sites.

5. Accounts disabled for clearly fraudulent activity would be reported to authorities and would have no chance for appeal. Accounts disabled for policy violations would be paid out whatever funds they earned on pages/sites that didn't violate policy, but would not be able to use AdSense again. Accounts disabled for invalid clicks would lose whatever earnings were earned from invalid activity, but retain whatever amounts they earning from valid clicks. Both policy and invalid click disabled accounts would have a chance to file an appeal.

6. People wanting to fill out an application for AdSense would first need to complete an online test that costs $1 to take. Once the test mode is entered, you cannot leave or close it, nor get access to the help files or blogs or anything else. You have to be able to answer the questions about Adsense and it's uses and policies on your own. If you can't answer the basic questions right, you fail. If you fail, you don't get to fill out an application. You can try the test again after studying the guidelines ... for another $1.  If you pass the basic test, you can fill out an application. A maximum of 2 applications can be made free of charge. After that, if neither application is accepted, you must pay $2 to complete and submit further applications.  This will help to avoid people creating multiple accounts and trying crappy website after crappy website. If you have to start paying, you might actually take the time to have a suitable website FIRST.

Of course, all of the above would take a great deal more staff than what's currently available, which means I'd have to put out a lot of money in salaries, so perhaps have to keep more of the percentage - either that, or things would move even slower in AdSense than they currently do.

... I have a lot of other things on my list and most apply for pre-approval or website quality.

And here, at last, is the real point of this post. Stop complaining that Adsense is what they are. They could be much worse.

Obviously, most of the above post is "tongue-in-cheek", since it would never happen.

I'm afraid that I would be a much more difficult taskmaster than the people that are running Adsense right now, and things would move much slower than they do now, so for those of you who complain about how tough it is to get an account, or to get a site approved, or that you have no direct contact, all I can say is thank your lucky stars that Adsense works as well as it does, and is as lenient as it is.

If it were up to me, 90% of the applications would probably be rejected and 50% of the currently approved accounts would be terminated (with pay of course).

Be thankful for AdSense even if it isn't perfect. They've given you a chance many others may not give you. It's up to you to make the most of that chance, and return the favour to AdSense. Be a good publisher, follow the rules and guidelines, and make good contents of your own.

posted by J. Gracey Stinson